Until now the EU has adopted a policy of allowing tech companies to self-regulate, but King said the EU has “not seen enough progress” from tech companies and is taking a stronger position, “in order to better protect our citizens.”

The exact details of the proposed regulation are still being thrashed out, but a senior EU official told the FT that tech companies would have a time limit of one hour to remove any material marked as terrorist content by the police or other relevant law enforcement. If companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter fail to do so, they could face fines.

“We cannot afford to relax or become complacent in the face of such a shadowy and destructive phenomenon,” said King.

This would be the first time the EU has targeted tech companies’ handling of illegal content with punitive measures, but the Commission has butted heads with big tech before.

King made it clear that the draft legislation would apply to all websites, large or small.

“The difference in size and resources means platforms have differing capabilities to act against terrorist content and their policies for doing so are not always transparent,” he said. “All this leads to such content continuing to proliferate across the internet, reappearing once deleted and spreading from platform to platform.”